Maria Grazia Chiuri will be honored alongside artist Judy Chicago and philanthropist Mellody Hobson by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Dior revealed today.

The Washington, D.C., museum will hold its annual gala on April 8, 2022, where the house’s first woman designer will be recognized with the museum’s lifetime achievement award; Dior will also sponsor the black-tie affair as a happy coincidence.

The National Building Museum, as the NMWA is undergoing renovations until 2023. Hopefully the creator of the master of Grandville, will also do some work on her facade.

Chanel has responded to online controversy about its advent calendar after being mocked by influencers over the contents of the limited-edition box, resulting in a flood of negative comments on social media in the run-up to its annual Métiers d’Art runway show, due to take place on Tuesday.

Bruno said “YO” the French luxury house produced the calendar as part of this year’s celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Chanel No.5 perfume, and it did not expect the negative feedback, he who certainly does not have a TIKTOK account.

Chanel thought it would please some of its customers by offering this type of product. Evidently, we see that you have to be careful and therefore, in future, we will certainly be much more cautious.

Indeed, the influencers had denigrated this calendar because the content did not match the price. $825 for 27 boxes numbered from five to 31, containing full-size perfume and makeup products, miniatures and souvenirs all stamped with founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s lucky number. By inviting influencers instead of journalists, Chanel gets the comments that the brand deserves. Continue reading →

Brexit has not yet arrived in Hyères ! British men’s wear designer Ifeanyi Okwuadi won the first prize at the 36th edition of the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography on Sunday, winning over a jury headed by Louise Trotter, creative director of Lacoste, with his collection of hybrid tailoring inspired by social protest and judge by crocodile.

The 27-year-old, who apprenticed for three years on London’s famed Savile Row and later studied fashion design at Ravensbourne University in London, developed his collection in parallel to working in logistics at British label Margaret Howell. He has also interned at brands such as Grace Wales Bonner and with artist Aitor Throup.

His collection, titled “Take the Toys From the Boys,” could have been the title of a book of Oscar Wild but was inspired by the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, a series of camps established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at a British air force base, which lasted from 1981 to 2000. Okwuadi said he’s been working on the topic for almost six years.

The Chloé fashion show, carried out by its new artistic director, Gabriela Hearst was held on the banks of the Seine at the Port de la Tournelle, next the restaurant the “Cheval Blanc” owned by the Lord of Arnault. Walking down the quay of the Pont de la Cité, the clouds chased by the breeze and cleaned from the rats by the city, for the circumstance, we waited quietly as “baliste” ready to shoot. I see a small swallow twirling back into town, then the noise calms down around us. On the Seine, hardly a wave, and the show begins for Gabriela who is not Mistral, not more Neruda, the educated will understand.

Long and ample silhouettes, dresses in raw silk of cream color, fringed like the Indian “komants” or Comanches, which means “those who always fight”. So the devil is in the details, like these hand-painted glazed ceramic buttons or these laces-fringes, recovered from sneakers, decorated with stones and metal parts, a way to tell us that here we recycle and we take care of the planet. We always recognize the degree of a civilization at the way it does not pollute its environment Continue reading →

The Italians are rebelling, and by not wanting to give in to the group of Lord Arnault, mark a turning point in acquisitions. It would have been brilliant for LVMH, to continue to build progressively its portfolio of high-end wines, which did not yet have any Italian brands worthy of the name. Banfi is a vineyard. “It is known as the hop”, this great wine of Tuscany. An ideal brand for the Lord’s group, associated with a historic castle, the cornerstone of the image of authentic luxury that the group seeks to spread to sell the story of history. Continue reading →

An English designer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of fabric who’s worked for years with Kim Jones both at Dior and Louis Vuitton before that—had a whole other dimension of deep British history on his mind.

Despite the ridiculous gestures more incongruous than couture, at Carolina Herrera the task does not matter as long as you have drunk. But it is true that with “Gordon who did not invent the Gin”, the creation and the filiform girls follow each other and look alike, these thin as nails, never make me hammer. “My eye is used to seeing beautiful things” he likes to say, he comes from Chicago Illinois, and builds dresses like the buildings of the city of Al Capone. If you attended the last presentation of his collection in New York, we had trouble seeing the beautiful and sublime being non-existent! A color palette of stains and gingham a la Tati, on suits that set the tone of a collection not very shiny.

Far, very far from this young boy so charming who, at the time, gave us his copy without inhibition. We thought then that his age would outweigh his youth to become a real designer, but it is not so. We have before us the finest example of couture cheating, imitation and false art, as well as the triumph of failure, the apotheosis of puffism. Continue reading →

Did you know that onomatopoeia makes words from a sound? Coquelicot, which appeared in the 16th century, is derived from cocorico, because the red flower is reminiscent of a rooster’s crest. Click, which in 1306 meant “to make a dry noise” had disappeared from the French language. It came back in 1980, reported by the English as “To click” to designate the use of the computer mouse. But there are many other terms derived from onomatopoeia such as chuintement, claque, hibou, hiccup or even zézaiement…

Over the course of time, we will also discover that words are sometimes taken from proper names. As early as the 16th century, the “truism”, in other words “an obvious fact that is unnecessarily specified”, was known. It comes from Jacques de la Palissade, who had nothing to do with this posthumous glory. Continue reading →

Gabrielle Chanel’s lucky number was five, for Karl Lagerfeld it was seven, and for Riccardo Tisci it is 17. That’s apparently why he puts that number on his T-shirts and at the end of his Instagram handle. This is the tip of the iceberg, because when it comes to superstition in the fashion industry, fortune tellers, fortune tellers, lucky talismans and even shamans have been around for ages. Friday the 13th is still considered a bad luck day.

Irrational beliefs with supernatural influences that would be at the origin of the perfume of the late Alber Elbaz; created in 2017 and named “Superstitious”. Former Dior designer Gianfranco Ferré never included a No. 17 look in his collections. It was always 16 bis, which is also why four-leaf clovers and evil eye motifs became so popular in his jewellery collections.

Superstitions in fashion, say psychologists, are due to a predisposition especially to people in insecure situations. Fashion is an industry that goes through ups and downs; you can be the star of the catwalk one day and totally out of favour the next. Part of the superstition comes from a lack of autonomy and anxiety, and people in the fashion industry think it helps them to choose when to present their collection. Continue reading →

Le Dictionnaire Amoureux du Parfum, by Elisabeth de Feydeau

From Adam and Eve to Chanel N°5, from the still to orientalism, the historian Elisabeth de Feydeau, who has already written many books on perfume, wanted to add a novelistic dimension to the words and characters she tells. Historical references and unpublished anecdotes are combined in this book, which reads almost more like a short story than a dictionary.

Editions Plon, 27 €.

Les 5 parfums de notre histoire, by Laure Margerand

No, this is not a book about the five most mythical fragrances, but a novel. An olfactory novel about anosmia and the quest for a taste for life after a family tragedy. Bonus: a bookmark with 6 scents linked to key moments in the story. A card with repositionable stickers designed by Arcade Beauty and put in smell by the perfumer Irène Farmachidi of TechnicoFlor.

Editions J’ai lu, €19.90 Continue reading →